There are three senses in which the word world can be used in a Biblical understanding as applying to the Christians identity and life; literally, it means the order or system according to which human affairs are managed on the earth. The earth itself is called the world, because it is the platform on which the world-system operates, and the people who live according to this world-system, absent a divine identity, are called the world and are of the world.
Contrarily those who are redeemed by having faith in a salvation given by Grace coming from a Man who the Bible teaches was God upon earth. A Man Who came specifically to die in representation, judicially, of all mankind and the world. He fulfilled God's perfect order of the justification of the Adam man of flesh by His death which was inclusive of all mankind of the flesh inheritance who believed Him. In God's sight we are now as flesh creatures in identity before God dead!. Thereby canceling out "Sin" which is "in the flesh", and He put to death all that is flesh in the sight of God,and all that we in this flesh [our condition] as Adam men are. By believing this we are now made to be distinct in a new creation of spirit [our position before God], in God's View. Separate and distinct from those of the world. Our life now may consist as taking sides with a rejected Christ by our new identity, against the world which has crucified Him. "Now you are light in the world" Eph. 5:8. A very humble position indeed.
We are now to be marked as men of a heavenly race, blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we are too shine as lights in this evil world. Being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will" Eph. 1:11. This is the great mission of God's children and nothing more is needed but to know this as our positional in Christ identity; all else will follow as Jesus lives His very life through us, we only need to rest in that in faith. But if this is true how can we truthfully/practically view ourselves in such a divine light? And just how will we be enabled to fulfill with any degree of confidence what the reveled mind of God expresses to us in the Word; as to the true nature, position and identity, of the child of God? "Walk as children of light" Eph. 5:8.
The answer is we must come to know who we really are as ones in Christ, as I touched on in my last blog. The Christian is told he should love his neighbor as himself, however this command was given while followers of Christ Jesus were under the law, prior to the Cross. But now after the Cross we have a new law/command, that of "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". It is not now, by this Law, given in Grace, through death, how we ourselves wish to be treated, or by what we wish for ourselves, or what we may accomplish that we may direct good toward others in outreach. No now by this new Law we sacrifice our very selves as Adam men of the flesh, as the Lord in Heaven is our identity and is now our life. "He [the Father] has chosen us in Him [the Son] before the foundation of the world" Eph. 1:4.
If this is true then, in God's view of our life, as defined in His minds conscious thought of us via His word, and we being under the dispensation of grace now: under which He teaches us that Christianity looks for having no self, as His law of life and Spirit cannot be based in a inner identity outside of His own. "But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off are made near by the Blood of Christ" Eph. 2:13. There is no value going forward toward God in ourselves as workers for Christ alone. Our thoughts or actions are of no value as Adam men to The Father. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation" 2 Cor. 5:17. There is also no value in our redemption quality but Christ Jesus Himself. We as Adam men of flesh have not been changed. No we are made new in His sight as ones of spirit."Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" Rom. 8:4.
If we have His mind, by reckoning in faith His Word, we then are giving up ourselves too His declaration of who we are in His Son. As Christ Jesus made us new in representation by His work upon the cross and in His Resurrection, now we are made in spirit in God's mind as: "He Himself [the Father] through Jesus Christ, accomplishing through you what is pleasing to Him" Heb. 13:21. This God's great and loving work was done by God so that His Son might live His own life through us in the new man we have become. Thus making us all new. "Put on the new man" Eph. 4:24. We are God's new creation seen by Him in His Son, as we are now as individual spirits know to the Father in perfect identity as; "hid in Christ with God". The world system simply does not and cannot recognize this, as perhaps far too many Christians may not also.
If we are to walk on this earth as Christian and that walk is to improve mankind by service, that a man might fulfill God's desire by works on this earth in any way, then we have a problem with our understanding of scripture. "If you, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God" Col. 3:1. The Word teaches us in Paul's letters that we can enter God's very mind to find our true place, which is of Spirit. We then may see that God directs us within to become a living creature in Spirit of the narrative of God's plan for our new identity; as set forth there for all to read and rest in faith within. "For you died [co-death with Christ] and you life [spirit of the new creation seen in Christ] is hid with Christ with God'. Col.3:3. It is only our cultural predisposition toward the World system that holds us back from understanding and therefore being what we truly are meant to be, as a daily experience in consciousness, acknowledging our new position and identity. If this is true then what is it that will open our mind to His Spirit to our new conscious identity? To know ourselves just as God does, that we may be of service by and in spirit as; "The carnal mind [the flesh mind of the soul] is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God neither can be" Rom. 8:7.
It is we in ourselves guided by the Holy Spirit, by His gift of faith, that we may begin to see that as our sense of our moral distance from the Father deepens and we acknowledge our weakness, it is then that we become conscious of our nearness to Him. We can only know our nearness, and thus the utter failure of the flesh, as we grow in awareness of the Words of His mind, as written in His Word; declaring His Mind to us. We will find this new mind only by the division and study of God's biblical doctrines. Which if neglected will serve to keep us united with the very world that Christ Jesus died unto on our behalf. What a loss, to loose a conscious awareness of the very life of Christ Jesus, living His Life through us. My prayer is we always strive to grow into the knowledge of our true beings and come to know that the Fathers only sees us in the light and love of His Son at His right side. In His Eye's we are there now with/in Him in Heaven. And may we desire to grow into knowing that we ourselves and all that is in and of the world, in God's mind, is annulled, done and dead, and of no consequence toward us "as eternal beings" what so ever. As the world and all its accomplishments here on earth is indeed a dead thing in the Fathers thoughts! "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus" Phil. 4:7.
